Yearly Planning
Look at the school year as a whole. Determine when you will begin school, when you will take breaks, go on vacation, how many days per week you will have school and whether you will school year round or follow the traditional schedule.
Daily Planning
Once you have decided when to have school, you can assign your lesson plans to each day or week. The beauty of most homeschool curriculum is that it has pre-scheduled lesson plans that either come with it or can be purchased separately. Take the total number of daily plans, quizzes, tests and decide how you want to plan them. Some courses plan for quizzes to be after the final weekday of lessons. This is entirely up to you. If you only have 130 days of lessons, you can easily move a quiz or test to its own day as you prefer.
You also have the freedom to combine pre-designed lesson plans. You are in charge of the plan and can lay it out the way that works best for you.
A typical lesson plan worksheet lists the day(s) of the week and subjects in a table with one across the top header row and one on the left column. Below is an example of a lesson plan page.
This format allows quick reference to a set of pre-determined lesson plans for those subjects that have them, as well as typing in specifics for those subjects that do not.
Daily Routine
What time will you begin class each day? How long will you spend on each subject? When will you break for lunch? Developing a routine and sticking to it teaches your students what to expect and helps them develop focus, goal setting, and teaches them to understand planning. A sample daily routine is posted below.
Day Out/Emergency Plans
Last but not least you will want to have a backup plan for those days when everything happens except school. Doctors appointments that take all day, quick errands that leave you stuck in traffic. It is always a good idea to have a plan of what you can do in the car, in a waiting room, or at grandma’s. You could have a “go” bag packed with flashcards, math fact practice worksheets, library books, it doesn’t necessarily have to be their actual schoolwork for the day. If you have a multi-grade history or science curriculum check to see if it has an audio cd. That day’s lesson can then be played in the car on your way to wherever you are going. Another option is to check out audio books from the library and keep them in the car. Play them as you go!
Mississippi Homeschool Info 